VOICE ONLY version of this podcast. Description: there is reason for hope as I take you on a very personal voyage into a lifelong quest for contact with nature and the biosphere: the Madre. She is the entity that for me represents the sentient yet very alien presence that is the planetary living bolus, The following interview, conducted in Sierra Madre, Califonria in November 2012, is the first of two parts in what became a conversation with the Madre. It is a drama of the evolution and the fight for the soul and survival of us monkeys and the Madre herself. Credits: Bruce Damer (speaker, intro, edit), Chris Aman (editing). [released 24 May 2013].